Writing Seasons Part 1: Season of Musing
A season speckled with distractions, inspiration and hidden gold... Which season are you in right now?
🟢 Part 1 — Season of Musing
⚪️ Part 2 — Season of Tending
⚪️ Part 3 — Season of Craft
⚪️ Part 4 — Season of Rest
Welcome to Writing Seasons, a four-part serialized guide from The Publishing Spectrum. If you’ve ever felt lost in your creative practice, uninspired by the traditional rules of writing or unsure how to trust your instincts — this series is for you.
Together we’ll explore four distinct seasons that shape a writer’s life and work: Musing, Tending, Craft and Rest. These aren’t rigid stages or a prescriptive formula, but rather invitations — ways to better relate to yourself, your writing and the natural rhythms of creative life.
We begin with the Season of Musing — the most amorphous, vulnerable and necessary of all.
I haven’t met a writer who didn’t keep a journal of some kind from a young age. Perhaps you didn’t, but in the hundreds of writers I’ve met in my life, every one of us had some secret place where our thoughts could be plunked down onto paper.
My first diary was white with pink hearts and a lock on it, which was clever enough to keep my little brother from fiddling with it, but could have easily been nudged open by a toothpick.
Using words to make sense of the world around and inside us gives writing a different kind of cellular identity. From this place, I start thinking about the Season of Musing.
Allow me to paint a picture of my own recent Season of Musing. For four years I lived in a picture-perfect, secluded mountain life in Colorado, the stuff of a writer’s dreams — and I could not write. I could imagine all the ways that I ought to be a writer, but it all just swirled in on itself.
I think my Season of Musing showed up precisely because I was deeply lost inside myself. The Season of Musing made me face something important. It wouldn’t let me pretend that I was doing great in my writing world — I couldn’t hide anymore behind cute, laid out marketing plans or business strategies. No, the Season of Musing showed up to tend to some deep, unanswered questions I had about myself. Which is why the Season of Musing feels rather unproductive: the writing is right there and, like a slippery fish, it’s jumping just beyond your grasp.
This season is inherently aimless, intimate, risky and liberating. And I don’t think the Season of Musing shows up just once — it returns again and again, like a sojourning friend.
If your writing feels wholly impossible to finish or bring to an ending, ask yourself if this might be a Season of Musing for you.
Here’s how and when this season often shows up:
We have pushed ourselves into structures, relationships and work that take too much from us.
We feel an urge to liberate, to throw a tantrum, to pull attention from anyone who will offer it — or even to confess our deepest secrets.
In my experience, the Season of Musing lays the foundation for some of the most juicy, energetic writing because it has an undercurrent of desperation. It just can’t help but fling open new doors, unleashing writing wholly new to us.
Though I should probably warn you about something innate to the Season of Musing. Inside here, we’re not producing writing that people instinctively applaud. The writing comes to the surface, but not easily or smoothly or in a way that makes much sense. No matter how much you try to bring a piece into a cohesive thought or takeaway, it tends to wiggle away. It can feel like a character is shapeshifting on you.
If you’re noticing your writing leaning more toward musing, give yourself permission to go offline with this writing or only share it with a friend. This writing is the stuff of banging-your-head-into-walls, frustration, endless question asking and, often, pessimism.
For all its messiness and vulnerability, I’ve learned that the Season of Musing is pretty much unavoidable — and it’s non-negotiable in the lifecycle of any writer. It lays such a rich foundation for writing that eventually embodies that singularity we’re all striving for.
Musing is messy, but only in the mess can we find some gold.
If this season resonates, take heart. The Season of Musing doesn’t produce tidy takeaways or viral posts — it opens the door to deep, unexpected truths.
Your only job right now is to stay with yourself and listen and keep writing. In our next part, we’ll explore how to shift from introspective meandering to intentional connection in the Season of Tending — where writing meets the world.
🌿 Still wandering through the in-between? Join us on Zoom next week.
If you’re in a phase where clarity feels distant in your writing, but something is quietly shifting, you’re not alone. Come join us in a free online event where we’ll explore the nature of navigating the Writing Seasons and what kinds of resources help us find out way through.
"The writing comes to the surface, but not easily or smoothly or in a way that makes much sense. No matter how much you try to bring a piece into a cohesive thought or takeaway, it tends to wiggle away. It can feel like a character is shapeshifting on you." This is so well expressed, Amanda. The plum rains have reached my part of Japan and are smuding away at firm shapes and clear ideas. It's not everyone's favourite season here, but we all know the benefits.
I once watched a young possum gathering dried leaves apparently for his home. He carefully inspected each dried leaf before passing it carefully to his back legs and then wound his tail delicately around the leaf to carry it home. By the time he waddled off with his wreath of leaves entertained in his tail he looked like a wall hanging for a florist shop.
This is how I feel my musings are gathered. Bits here and there, carefully wrapped and tended as written on a page, to be unfurled later and added as the story unfolds.
🤎🐀 🌿🍃